Alma man helps Sierra Leone amputee victims

Published 5:21 am, Tuesday, January 17, 2012

ALMA -- A teen age boy named Abdulai Sesay of Sierra Leone became the impetus for Wellesley College sophomore Charlotte Hulme to help the amputee victims of that country.

With the help of the Alma-St. Louis Rotary Club, the Alma native, has raised nearly $4,000 to provide artificial limbs for 25 people, many of whom are the victims of a civil war that took place from 1991 to 2002.

These aren't the people who stepped on land mines.

Nearly 50,000 people were killed in that conflict but many others underwent the deliberate amputation of arms, legs, hands, lips, or ears during that bloody war by rebel forces.

Abdulai Sesay, 15, the son of a single mother in one of the poorest countries in the world, was not one of the war's casualties. His story isn't that unusual however. He had broken his arm, but he wasn't able to get to a doctor. The arm became infected and had to be amputated.

Hulme explained to the Rotary Club members that, as part of a college program, she interviewed 125 people at a hospital in the northern part of the country and at a "feeding center."

The feeding center is where malnourished children come to stay for a week and eat healthy.

The interviews were, she said, "horrifying. It's impossible to summarize."

She heard stories of women and children who were raped, babies that were tossed into rivers and men and women who were shot, beaten and stabbed, along with those who had their arms and legs cut off in order to make a political statement.

She quoted one man who told her, "The war killed me, but I'm not dead."

Amputees suffer a special stigma in that country and are often unable to go to school or train or hold a job, she said. Abdulai Sesay would most likely wind up a beggar.

It was for Hulme, the daughter of Dr. Derrick and Diana Hulme, a no brainer.

She made a call home to her family and instead of buying souvenirs of her month-long trip, Abdulai Sesay would get an artificial arm.

That's how her project began. With the help of Alma doctor Jeff Smith and the Footprints Mission, Hulme is able to send money to that country and be assured that every bit of it is spent on the artificial limbs.

The Alma-St. Louis Rotary club, with its donation, is sponsoring nine patients and there's a waiting list.

Abdulai's mother, who as a farmer earns perhaps $2 a day, was unable to afford a new arm, costing $150. She was so grateful to Hulme that she presented her with one of her most prized possessions, a live chicken and three eggs.

To be able to help these people, who for the most part, bear no grudge toward the rebels that inflicted so much damage on them, is Hulme said, "really cool. They will feel this every day of their lives. I see no reason why it can't keep growing."